When does spring start? Even artificial intelligence can’t agree. If you said March 1st, you clearly follow the meteorological definition of the seasons; if you said March 20th, apparently that is the astronomical definition.
But if you were brought up through the Irish school system, there is a good chance that you view February 1st – St Brigid’s Day – as the first day of spring.
Who is right on that one is a debate for another day but, regardless of when you think spring starts, it is a good time to start looking at spring cleaning your tech.
Computers
Take a good look at your computer desktop. If you are in the habit of saving everything there “so it is easy to find”, there’s a good chance that it is a cluttered mess.
Delete everything you no longer need – old documents, screenshots and random files you cannot recall why you kept – and organise everything else into a system of folders, kept in a convenient location off the desktop.
Next up: your downloads folder. Clear that periodically of everything you don’t actually need to keep and save the things you do into your perfectly organised filing system. Repeat with your computer’s default document storage location.
I confess: I have email in my inbox from 2007. And they aren’t even useful messages, or relevant to 2025: they are about fixed savings rates, from the long-defunct Anglo Irish Bank.
It’s not that I am particularly attached to those emails; they’ve just been forgotten about.
While I’m better at dealing with the more recent unwanted emails that arrive in to my inbox (currently keeping up the inbox-zero target that I committed to last year – for my personal email at least), dealing with more than a decade of old emails seems a bit more daunting.
Apple’s latest software update could help you deal with some of the historical clutter. The new version of the Mail app on iOS brings new organisational tools to your inbox, categorising your email into several headings – Primary, Transactions, Updates and Promotions – so you can ignore the marketing emails and delete them en masse when needed.
It will also group emails from the same sender together, allowing you to delete multiple unwanted emails with one swipe.
If you don’t like that, however, you can switch it off. Tap the three dots in the top right corner of your screen and switch to List View.
None of this functionality will be new to you if you are a Google user, though; its Gmail programme has been categorising and grouping email for a few years. It also has a “select all” option for email that pops up in search results, making it easier to delete unwanted email that you find.
Photos
Years ago, photos were physical things we had to pay to get developed and then find space to store. We were probably a little more discerning then too about the subjects of our photographs; when you have to pay actual money to see the end result, having invested upfront to purchase the film and then having to wait until they are developed, you are less likely to fire off roll after roll of shots.
But things have changed, thanks to digital cameras and the ubiquitous smartphone. We are amassing a digital library that adds up to thousands of photographs over our lifetime, the bulk of which will stay marooned on a digital device or in the cloud, never to be seen again.
I can’t be the only one who, on opening a photo or video, has to take a few minutes to figure out who is in the photo and why I have it (nine times out of 10, it is some random photograph that was auto-saved from a WhatsApp group chat).
AI can now come to the rescue. You can use the power of Google and Apple’s technology to make albums from the photographs that you want to keep, and also to hunt down the ones that you shouldn’t.
The easiest place to start with digital clutter is screenshots. A quick way of taking notes, screenshots also clutter up our devices long after they are useful. Both Apple and Google can find screenshots in your photo gallery and allow you to delete them with a few swipes.
Duplicate photos can also be found and deleted in minutes with your phone’s built-in tools. You can choose to keep multiple versions, or merge them so you only retain the highest-quality version.
For a greater impact on your phone’s storage capacity, deleting unneeded videos will deliver a quick result. Do you really need five blurry, 10-minute videos of a concert you saw in 2015? Probably not. Delete them from your phone and cloud storage, and free up some space.
Physical spring cleaning
Technology is a tactile thing. We tap at keyboards, hold phones to our face, swipe at touchscreens. And yet when was the last time you cleaned any of those things?
Apparently not enough. A study published several years ago claimed keyboards were dirtier than toilet seats, with more bacteria lurking at our fingertips than you might expect.
Fast forward a decade and a half, and things are probably a bit worse. Smartphones go everywhere with us now – even into the bathroom, judging by the number of “night out” selfies shot in there – which means they are probably carrying some unwanted bacteria with them. A quick wipe every now and again wouldn’t do any harm.
Smartphones also pick up all sorts of debris and dirt throughout their lifetime that can affect their performance. One regular culprit is the charging port. Fluff from your pocket, bits of tissue and general grout can clog up the port, affecting how it charges or even whether the cable will stay in place.
Despite numerous Reels and TikToks that promise you “one great hack” do not, under any circumstances, put hot glue inside your phone’s charging port to clear it out. Likewise, keep sharp metal objects out of there.
Phone makers suggest soft, lint-free cloths to clean the surface of the phone, and avoid using compressed air on ports. If you are having an issue with your charging port, it is best to contact the manufacturer for support.
Keyboards
If you are in any way germaphobic, hot-desking is hell. The amount of dirt and grout keyboards collect over the years doesn’t bear thinking about. If you want to check for yourself, simply tip your keyboard over and give it a good shake, and see what emerges. It’s guaranteed to put you off your lunch – at least while you are at your desk.
A can of compressed air will help blast dirt from under your keyboard, while a wipe with a soft cloth and some antibacterial cleaner will help keep the surface clean without removing the keys from the keyboard itself.
Old devices
Everyone has a tech graveyard of old devices, broken or orphaned cables and bits of tech junk that they no longer need.
Now is the time to clear it out. No one needs 20 USB-C cables, especially old ones that are starting to fray to the point of malfunction. That Blackberry from 2005 is unlikely to experience a resurgence in popularity. And while some technology holds its value, anything with a smashed screen or damaged case won’t be a headline grabber at auction.
You have a few options for disposing of old technology. Some devices such as smartphones and tablets can be traded in for credit or cash with different companies. Samsung and Apple have trade-in programmes in different countries, as does Vodafone and Three Ireland. Companies such as CeX are also an option.
Obsolete or broken tech should go to the local WEEE centre for recycling – once they have been cleared of your personal data, of course.
